


Ink

by ghostchibi



Series: Arcverse [10]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Maxson has some bad coping mechanisms and Arc tries their best, Self-Harm, discussion of self-harm, the reference is one line about suicide in general but I'm not sure how else to tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-30 01:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12643356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostchibi/pseuds/ghostchibi
Summary: It's Arc's job as Sentinel to keep Arthur safe, no matter in what form.





	Ink

**Author's Note:**

> hello this is more Arcverse vent fic
> 
> Maxson tends to be the one I project on for these things
> 
> Maxson isn't suicidal in this one and beyond one line there isn't really a discussion of suicide in this. It's more of a discussion on self-harm, and how even "small" things can become worse and self-harm is still self-harm, even if it seems less dangerous.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Maxson jolts at the sudden voice, and looks up to see Sentinel Mitchell standing in his room, the door closed behind them. Their hand is still on the handle, gripping tightly, and the look on their face is of incredible alarm.

“ _Knock_ , Mitchell,” Maxson snaps in response. “I said my door is open any time but you need to knock fir-”

“I knocked three times and was about to kick the door down because you didn’t answer and it was locked!” the sentinel retorts. “I forgot I had the key, I thought you’d passed out and I pani-  _ **is that blood?**_ ”

Their gaze drops lower as they exclaim, and Maxson follows their line of sight down to his thigh. And then his heart jumps in his chest, realizing that his combat knife that he’d been holding in his right hand earlier is now still in his hand but pressed against his thigh, the serrated edge having shredded through the fabric of his flight suit and dug into his skin.

He has no conscious memory of having done that.

There’s blood all over his leg.

“Maxson, put that down right now.”

Arthur, for once, does as Arc says without hesitation. The knife drops from his hand onto the floor with a clatter, and Arc is at his side just as quickly as Arthur turns in his chair to look at his leg. The wounds don’t look deep, but there’s a significant amount of blood soaked through his flight suit and trickling down his leg. The metal chair has smears of drying blood on the seat.

“What did you do to yourself,” Arc breathes out, horrified. Arthur reaches out toward the cuts, then stops, unsure of where to even start.

“I didn’t- I didn’t do this on purpose,” Arthur stammers out. He’s ready for an exclamation of disbelief from Arc that never comes; Arc doesn’t reply to him at all, and instead looks around the room immediately.

“Please tell me you keep a first aid kit in here.”

“In the locker.”

Arc makes a mad dash over to it and yanks the door open, looking up and down before spotting the box bearing a red cross and practically throwing it on the floor next to Arthur in their rush back.

“Get your uniform off,” Arc snaps, although it’s in panic rather than anger. Arthur fumbles with the buckle at his throat, fingers shaking too much for the dexterity needed to undo it, and Arc smacks Arthur’s hands away to do it themself. Arthur yanks open the fastenings and then the zipper, tugging his arms out of the flight suit, then pauses.

“Stand up, and slowly get your leg out of it,” Arc orders. Arthur stands and stumbles when the pain in his leg hits him, but Arc catches him by the shoulder and keeps him upright. With a bit of difficulty Arc manages to help him prop his foot onto the chair, and Arc carefully pulls the leg of the uniform down. Arthur kicks off his boots to get the uniform off of him completely, and Arc guides him to lean against the table so that he’s not sitting in his own blood while Arc kneels down to tend to the wound.

Arc picks up the tweezers and starts picking loose bits of fabric out of the cuts. Arthur winces a few times when they dig in, and Arc rubs his knee apologetically. Arc reaches for the antiseptic, and Arthur shakes his head.

“The knife’s clean.”

“I don’t care. Stimpaks don’t kill infections.”

Arthur hisses at the sting as Arc presses the antiseptic-soaked gauze against his leg. A moment later there’s a pinching pain from the stimpak injection, and soreness as the injury starts to mend slowly.

“It’s closed up now,” Arc says, staring at the area where Arthur’s skin had been a mess earlier, then looks up at Arthur. “Maxson, you absolutely cannot-”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” he hisses back at Arc. And it’s true, he hadn’t actually meant to. He wasn’t thinking, his mind in a fog, and his hand had still been on the knife he’d been cleaning earlier.

He doesn’t add the “this time” at the end of the sentence, but Arc seems to hear it anyway.

“Christ, Maxson… you took a serrated knife to your leg, and you weren’t even thinking about it,” they say. “I didn’t even know about… fuck. You’ve done this before.”

“It was never this severe,” Arthur murmurs in response, and rubs his face. “I didn’t… Mitchell, this was an accident. I never drew blood once before. I was careful.”

“But you’d scratch with the blade on your knife,” Arc replies. “And that would leave marks.”

“Thin scratches swell up,” Arthur admits. “I’m sure you’ve had them before.”

“Yeah. My mom called them  _mimizubare_. ‘Worm swelling,’ I guess it’s a pretty descriptive phrase. They look a bit ugly for a while, but it goes down and usually all that’s left is a really thin scab from the scratch.”

Arc stands up, putting the bloodied tweezers and gauze on the edge of the table. Arthur avoids looking at them.

“Has Cade suggested anything?”

“He hasn’t noticed.”

“ _What?_ ”

“You saw the scars that are already there. Those are from the same time that these happened,” Arthur explains, gesturing to his face. “Like I said, I’ve been careful. If anything scars, it’s difficult to see with the old scars already there.”

Arc sighs.

“I understand,” they start to say, before pausing. “I just…”

“I know this isn’t healthy.”

“Hell no it’s not.”

“You’re angry.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Do I get angry at you when you drink?”

“You-”

“Anger and concern are nowhere near the same thing, Maxson.”

Now it’s Arthur’s turn to sigh. He pushes himself off of the table, brushing his thumb against his thigh where it had been bleeding earlier.

“I don’t wish to have this conversation while standing in my boxers with blood on me,” Arthur says.

“Understandable. Go take a shower, you’ve got blood on your face too.”

* * *

When Arthur steps out of his bathroom wrapped in a towel, Arc already has his change of clothes ready for him, folded neatly on his bed. Arc is sitting on the chair from earlier, now cleaned of blood, politely looking the other way. Arthur pulls on the boxers, sweatpants, and tank top, and sits down on his bed.

Arc turns around with an unreadable expression.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Arthur starts before Arc can. “I don’t. Not now.”

“I can’t do anything to help, anyway,” Arc admits. “I don’t know how. I can’t just take all the sharp objects out of your room and call this problem solved.”

Silence settles between them for a while.

“…please talk to Cade about this.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. He cares about you.”

“Captain Cade is a soldier under my command, no matter what kind of personal relationship I have with him. I can’t-”

“He’s practically your fucking dad, Maxson. He’s a doctor. I am, regrettably, your reluctant second-in-command that you still have a pretty shitty personal relationship with, and not a doctor. Talk to him, because I know you don’t talk to anyone else other than me and Ingram, and Ingram is going to tell you to talk to Cade if you bring it up with her.”

Arc stands up and sits down on the bed next to Arthur. They seem to hesitate for a moment, then put their hand on Arthur’s shoulder. Neither Arc nor Arthur turn to look at each other.

“I’m your sentinel. I’m supposed to protect you, and there’s no damn point if I let you kill yourself.”

“I know,” Arthur replies. Arc is unshakable.

* * *

A few days later, Maxson opens the door to his quarters to discover there’s a package wrapped in paper and tied together with twine lying on his desk. He looks at it suspiciously with one brow raised. The only person who could possibly access his room to leave that is Sentinel Mitchell, and they’d already spoken to him earlier; if they’d had anything to turn over, it certainly wouldn’t have come to him, nor be left in his room without a word.

The handwriting on the note left under the small package is unmistakably theirs, though. Maxson pulls it out to read.

_I had a friend who used markers and drew on herself. It helped that the ink was sticky, even if it was the wrong color sometimes. I thought it might help._

_\- Mitchell_

_PS: Red didn’t seem like a good idea. Tell me if you want red._

Maxson puts the paper down, confused, then unties the package. Inside, there’s a small brush with a thin tip, and two sizable square bottles full of black ink.

He stares at them. His hand moves to uncork one of the bottles, the other reaching for the brush. He dips the brush in and swirls it in the ink as if testing it, then pulls it out to let the ink drip back into the bottle.

Maxson holds the brush over the back of his hand, and draws a slow, thin line right under his knuckles. The ink stands out in stark contrast against his skin and the darkened scars.

After a moment of watching the ink on his hand, Maxson turns toward his terminal. He sends Captain Cade a quick message requesting that the two of them speak later that day.


End file.
